lrobb's group full - the work is plentiful, success is guaranteed! (Page 16)

Saw you reference this in your log: Resolved: Going to quit wasting 150 Hrs/Yr. (Swimming)

I agree that if you're just doing the same crappy stroke over & over, then you're wasting your time. Just swim a hard 1k a few times a week and call it good.


BUT, the swim is the one area where we can all pick up "free speed" -- speed we don't have to work any harder for, just like throwing race wheels on our bike, only the free swim speed is probably around 10x more effective.

You've got to remember some of the coaches on there might have a slightly skewed view of the average age grouper: it's a pretty self-selected group of people that want a tri-coach, and those people are usually already quite good. In other words, be careful what advice you listen to. Mine included!

I've had several "breakthroughs" in swim speed:

1) Doing TI drills. This got me to the point where I could swim w/o thrashing.

2) VASA trainer. While the literature fails to show performance benefits of strength training in trained subjects, I think a lot of us might lie in the "untrained" state as far as strength goes. That's a long-winded way of saying I've picked up the strength necessary to actually be able to have a "high-elbow" via the VASA trainer. It has also really helped to ingrain the high elbow / early catch technique.

3) Band-only swimming!!! I'm swimming 1:40 per 100yd, with open turns, "easy" now. That was my T-pace at the start of the season, and I had only dropped my T-pace down to 1:35 a few weeks ago. I'm also only taking 16-18 strokes per length, down from 20-22 earlier.

Point of all this rambling: Someone good watching your stroke will be able to help you pick up all this free speed. Master's swimming with a good coach on deck is the surest path to swimming fast. Other than that, a good coach that can show you a few drills to do, and show you how to do them correctly, will work too. So pay for a lesson, go away for a few weeks and do the work, take another lesson, etc... Doesn't have to break the bank.

If you don't have the swim coaching available, this is where short repeats with the pull buoy + small paddles can really help. That's not just me talking, that's the philosophy of one of the best (if not the best) tri coaches out there: Brett Sutton. He's not only coached Olympic medalists in swimming, he's also taught a lot of adult triathletes how to swim.

An idea for a beginning swimmer: 20 x 50 with 20sec rest between each, pull buoy & paddles. Each 50: swim 25 as "catch-up drill", with both arms extended before beginning the catch, then 25 back as regular swim.

What is VASA and what is band only?

Gotta go ride right now but my swimming story is not happy - all the swimming I did in my HIM program seemed to wreck whatever stroke I had - I did much better in Masters, with a watchful coach. When I started having to swim long long sets I just got slower and more discouraged. Swimming more is not necessarily the answer: it is definitely NOT the answer when one is new to it.

Gaddago!

A VASA trainer is a swim bench:

http://www.byrn.org/gtips/vasaFAQ.htm




Band swimming is tying a band around your ankles to remove your kick (no pull buoy). I would consider it an advanced drill.

This is from an email I sent to someone:

Key changes I noticed from learning the band drill --

-- Front quadrant swimming. The theory behind this is the weight of your arms helps you use your lungs as a fulcrum and keep your body horizontal/riding high in the water. There's no way you can swim with a band and not do this. I noticed when I finally got a hang of it that my arms were always well out in front. By the time I was in the power stroke of my catch with one arm, my other arm was already entering.

-- Turnover. My turnover has been really slow, and that just won't work with the bands. My turnover increased a lot.

-- High elbow. You know how you can keep your elbow really high on the vasa? Same thing with the band. I thought I had high elbows with my regular stroke, but with the band they were REALLY high, just like on the vasa. Pretty much you've got to start pulling back immediately, no time to dig down in the water, as soon as the paddle goes in, it starts going back or else you'll stall and sink.

-- Not lifting the head to breath. You've got to pretty much rotate and put your ear on your shoulder to breath. Lift your head = sink. I swallowed a fair amount of water at first.

Again, these were all things I THOUGHT I was already doing, but apparently not as well as I should've been.

Right on.

I think if you have good form, and can hold it, long swim sets are the best approach for tri swimming. But I think for the majority of us, shorter sets where we hold that good form, with enough rest so that we can recover and do another set with good form, is the way to go. I see the recommendation on some other forums that masters / short sets aren't specific to triathlon swimming and therefore triathletes shouldn't do it.

Strongly, strongly disagree.

The standard golf analogy: if you're on the driving range and you get tired and your swing goes to hell, you pack it up and go home, you don't just keep swinging -- otherwise you'll ingrain bad swing mechanics that will be very very hard to break. If you can't hold good form, you're not doing yourself any good just by staying out there longer.


Something else you touched on in your log about getting on the bike because it was so nice out -- I think that's a great key to maintain freshness & motivation. My first few years in the sport were fairly unstructured:

group rides on wednesday & saturday.
swim several times in the weeks leading up to a race.
run if I felt like it in between both of the above.

Since then I've become a "trainer" - I like to work out just for the pleasure of working out. It was a beautiful morning out, and where was I? On the treadmill getting in a solid tempo run before hitting the pool for 2500 yds.

I wrote this on another forum:

Any tips on how to stay fresh?

Focus on events... Concentrate on running a fast half mary in the fall, hit the pool/masters in the winter and try to move up a lane (or two), ramp up for the crit/road racing series in the spring, and pretty soon you find yourself in great shape w/o realizing it.

Edited by lrobb 2008-07-19 10:46 AM

Yep. I have been doing shorter, drill-focused swims. Do a drill, think about it, swim and apply what I learned. Key is understanding what the drill aims to teach.

Masters - that totally depends. I have been in a Masters group that was all wrong for triathletes if you ask me. Oriented towards sprinting, lots of kicking, blah blah blah, the usual. Maybe it works for college kids but it sure didn't work for me and other gals I know of a certain age: all we got was shoulder injuries. Boo, hiss. But then again, I was in a Masters group that was much more instruction-oriented. Our total yardage would be 1600 versus 2500 or 3K. Who cares! We got out of that pool happy and wanting to do it again and slowly improving. Seems that at middle age, that's all you can expect: some slow improvement. Sure, if I would quit my job and sell off my kids I bet I could improve a little faster by swimming 5 - 6x a week, hiring a coach, etc, as is mentioned in that slowtwitch thread. But easy speed? No, it is not easy and it does not come cheap. There are limits to most people's resources and just like I decided, 'well, no, I am just not gonna sink big bucks into buying a tri bike just yet' I will just have to live with my swimming being less than stellar.

Another thing I learned: three sports is a lot of sports. Some plans apparently have you rotate through them and focus more on one for a period of time. Really good idea. For now I am done with my swimming focus and will enjoy riding outside as long as the weather is good and the days long:soon enough it will be dark by the time I get home so may as well go stare at the bottom of a pool during those months. For now, I am in this for fun & fitness primarily. As a late-middle aged beginner, I ain't gonna set the world on fire ;-)

PS that VASA trainer looks cool. I would love to have access to one!

editted: Ok you said 'free' speed not 'easy'. Gotcha on that. I'm gonna try that drill. And I *think* I have found a good coach - all the others so far have said "Oh you look OK maybe try this ... but really, a t-pace of over 2 minutes per 100 yards? That's not OK. And thanks for the drill! I will try that.

Edited by BabsVa 2008-07-19 1:48 PM

I am assuming that is 310 watts? I have no idea what it takes to put out 300 watts but I was watching the Tour last night and they had a computer on one of the bikes and he hit 500 watts in a sprint.

This is exactally how my wife and I started. We are using the 16 week couch to sprint training plan. For the runs we started with about 2 min run 1 min walk and did our time which was about 17 min to start. Now only a few months later I can run for 35 min.Its at a 11:30 min/mi slow pace but I am very happy with where I am at considering where I started. It is all about getting started and staying consistent. I am very adamant about missing training. If you never miss a day then you will never miss a week. Often I have to postpone train and double up days because of weather. But I always get it in the same week.

For my efforts I have lost over 60 lbs since the first of the year. Again I stress it is about starting and then staying consistent. Having a goal with a deadline helps a lot as well. Pick a race whether it be a Triathlon, duatlon, or a run with a specific date and then train for it. For me it helps to be training for something instead of just exercising to get healthy. There is not a sense of urgency with out a deadline. After you set your goal stay committed and find people to hold you accountable. That is where this board is very helpful. Triathletes from what I have seen as a whole are very helpful and want to welcome others into the fraternity. I have yet to meet a triathlete on this board or in person who was not extremely encouraging and helpful.

Good luck and stick with it.

While watching the tour, the announcers said the average cyclist puts out about 140 watts as an average over the whole ride. The 500 watts for the pro's is the highest the go for a short period of time, while going up mountains.

I think, but not sure, that they said the peleton averages about 340 watts over the course of the day riding.

Yep, watts.

Floyd could reportedly put out 400+ watts for an hour, weighing 148 pounds. ( http://www.triathloncoach.com/m2revolution/Floyd.htm)

Again I stress it is about starting and then staying consistent. Having a goal with a deadline helps a lot as well. Pick a race whether it be a Triathlon, duatlon, or a run with a specific date and then train for it.

Well said. If I don't get my morning workout in, I get grumpy.

Picking an early season half ironman worked wonders for keeping me headed out the door instead of sitting on the couch.

The band-work is paying off. I did my "easy" 100s today in 1:35/100yd, 18 strokes per length.

This is what I mean by free/easy speed: 3 weeks ago my "easy" pace was about 1:50 per 100yd and I was taking about 22 strokes per length. No extra "work" in the sense of busting out hard repeats or putting in big yardage, just a specific drill that corrected a few flaws in my stroke.

The hard part is figuring where the hitch in your stroke is, and what drill(s) will fix it.

Lee
I am envious. I have to travel for the next two weeks but after that I start a stroke refinement class. My wife just took it and loved it. my 100 m times are 2:30 average. At this point I would love to get that sub 2 min. I think that I would drown in a 3 ft pool with a band on my legs. I try to work on my upper body with my paddles and minimal kicks but I am still in a not so horizontal position. Did you post anything besides and explanation of band training, i.e. video. I did not come from a swimming background and this is where I have a huge knowledge gap as far as increases in efficiency.

I think that I can accomplish my initial goal of 2 hours on the sprint, which is a new goal since my original goal of just finishing didn't seem like it was going to be difficult to accomplish. But I know that if I have any hope of moving to Olympic distance next year my swim will have to improve. I get about 1350 m on my 35 min swim days but I am pretty spent after that.

Hey Tiny,

I started about where you are, so there's hope! I did my first sprint distance 500 yd swim in 9:30 or so, almost 2:00 per 100yd. I remember being stoked because I had broken 10 minutes. Probably cooked myself for the rest of the race, though.

Gordo Byrn, the guy shown using the VASA above, didn't start swimming until in his 30's, swam a 1:15 in his first Ironman, can now swim mid-to-low 50's.

He also has a good section on using swim cords, which can be had for a lot cheaper than a vasa:

http://www.byrn.org/gtips/swimcords.htm


Here's a vid of band-only swimming: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vpXgRyc6r1U

Notice how relaxed he is!! I did try slowing down a little yesterday, and did some 50's instead of the 25's I had been doing. Once I learn how to be smoother in the water with the band, watch out, I'll be coming out of the water with the lead group!

I'd keep up with the pulling at first though, add in some cord work as shown above on the days you aren't in the pool... Band-only would be good once you can complete a pull set of about 2500 yards or so, and are breaking 2:00 per 100yd.


Here's some more info on using the pull buoy/paddles:

http://www.triathletemag.com/Departments/Training/2005/storybfd9.ht...

Technical pulling
Although many use pulling as a way to increase intensity and muscular load, paddles can serve a technical purpose as well. The added pressure awareness on the hands that comes from using paddles often helps keep the elbow high and armpit open, thus reducing dropped elbows, a common technical error in freestyle. Improving the catch also enables better use of the trunk muscles, including the lats – and a key to swimming faster is engaging these muscles, rather than just the arms. If a swimmer can feel some fatigue in the lats after a good pull set, then he or she is on the right track.

Band only
Swimming with an ankle band is probably not one of the most popular swim drills, but it is one of the most effective. An ankle band can be made of an old bicycle tube tied into a loop, and it will eliminate the kick from your freestyle. Doing so forces a swimmer to find a way to catch more water, otherwise they don't move forward; hence, it is often called a sink-or-swim drill. When first starting out with the ankle band, it can be difficult to maintain a good body position. The legs sink and it takes quite a bit of energy to move up and down the pool. Over time, however, swimmers learn to hold more water with each stroke, and their body position will improve. At first swimmers increase their stroke rate to make up for inefficiencies in their catch, but focus on doing the drill more effectively by pulling more water. Count your strokes with the band-only drill to measure your efficiency.



Another drill I'm "fond" of is 1-arm pulling, as described here: http://www.slowtwitch.com/Training/Stalling_in_the_water_307.html



First test: One-arm pulls

Push off the wall and pull with only your left arm across the length of the pool. Your right arm should be stretched out in front of you like Superman in flight. Your body will be rolled to the left, since you’ll be left-side breathing, so your right ribcage will be facing the bottom of the pool as you swim. On the return trip, pull with your right arm, right-side breathing, with your left arm straight in front of you.

When you do these one-arm pulls, your legs must kick in a rhythm appropriate to your pull rate. For example, if you’re a six-beat kicker, make sure you’re pulling once every six kicks, and that your kick is in sync with your pull. It may take a week or two (or more) of doing these one-arm drills in order for kick to sync with the pulls, but you’ll get it.

“One-arm pulls, we’re stopping the presses for this?” you might ask. Yes, you’re right, it’s just your basic one-arm pull drill, kicking in sync. The key here is what happens to the off arm—the one that’s straight in front of you. If it doesn’t stay straight, you’re stalling. When a mediocre swimmer executes a one-arm pull drill like this, you’ll see him scull (a little or a lot) with the off arm to keep his body in motion between pulls. That off-arm sculling is evidence of a stall.

Does this describe you during a one-arm pull drill? If so, then the test now becomes the fix. One-arm drills ought to become a part of every workout, until that off arm remains straight out in front during the drill, with no change in the plane of the hand. When it does, that’s evidence you’ve gotten rid of a hitch in your stroke. That paves the way for you to make big improvements in speed.



Notice I put "fond" in quotes -- the drills we hate the most are the ones that will help us the most.

You can make great gains for the first few years just by doing each sport 2 - 3 times per week, regularly, and consistently. At some point, putting the emphasis on a single sport can become a good idea -- or even if you're just tired of working out so much.

The keys to making this work are what Jack Daniels calls the "ease of maintenance" principle and the "rate of achievement" principle. Say you decide you want to be a better swimmer, and part of that prescription calls for putting in a lot more yardage than you are used to doing.

The rate of achievement principle says that your body is going to adapt to the new training load, gain the majority of the benefits from the new training load, in about 6 weeks. So that's the goal, a sizeable increase in training load for 6 weeks. Taking myself for example, I don't like going to the pool so I only swim 2 or 3 times per week, 2500 yards each time on average. So a swim block for me might call on going to the pool 5 times per week and doing 2500 yards each time. To reap the benefits of this increase, I only have to put in the time, consistently, for 6 weeks. That's the goal.

The ease of maintenance principle will work in two ways. First, I don't want to lose bike & run fitness while I'm doing this block, so I will have to make sure I still do a minimal level of bike/run. BTW, winter is a great time for a swim focus since it's dark and cold outside, but the pool is always at a consistent temperature. So for my bike & run, I can maintain my fitness with 2 or 3 sessions. Since dislike two-a-days, I'll make them bricks: A bike/run during the week, and a run/bike/run during the weekend, maybe a couple of 20 minute runs before the pool opens. The rest of my time is focused solely on "being a swimmer". After the training block, the principle works to my advantage again: hopefully I'm swimming a lot faster at this point, and I can now maintain the same fitness on a lot less swimming.

I have a dirty little secret: I don't swim in the winter! :0 But sure enough, each time spring rolls around and I have to get back into it, it only takes a couple of weeks and I'm swimming just as fast as I was at the end of the last year.

That said, I do plan on putting in a swim focus block this winter. I have to to become competitive with some of the swimmers around here. My goal for Redman half-iron is 35 minutes. We'll see after the block, but I hope 30' for a half-iron swim is within sight.

Wow that is great stuff. I knew we kept you around for something. I think this is a good Idea. I am going to finish this training plan as it will take me into the sprint in August. Then I need to figure out what to do in between this sprint and the other that I hope to do in October. I will have almost 2 months off in between. I would like to take my results from MD and take the two months to focus on improving what ends up being my weakest. I am assuming that will be the run.

I am having so much fun with this training. I am almost wondering if I am not training hard enough because I am not being sore. I don't want to train and get hurt but I want to make sure I am being effective in my training. What is to be expected as far as soreness. I am making gains and reaching my goals that I have set for my self so I am happy with the results. My weight loss is progressing fast enough to keep the motivation but not so fast that I feel it is unhealthy.

Thanks for your help Lee and all of the others on this thread as well.

I knew we kept you around for something.




Not sore, but tired. I'll write more tomorrow or tonight explaining that a little more. Family time beckons.

Edited by lrobb 2008-07-20 11:40 AM

I'm hesitant to give general training advice, because usually the correct answer is "it depends", based at least in part on the person the advice is directed towards, and their goals.

Of course, when an absolute couch-potato goes from nothing to any new activity, some muscle soreness is going to be expected. I'm assuming we all know the difference between so-called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) and the beginnings of an injury.

This soreness results from a significant increase in training load. That's the reason a couch-potato can expect to get sore: pretty much doing *anything* is a big increase in their training load. So after the initial "breaking-in" period where your body gets used to doing the activity, then you don't need to be getting sore in order to get better or train effectively.

However ....

I can't say that DOMS is bad, in and of itself, because sometimes a big increase in training load isn't bad, in and of itself. I regularly experience a little *slight* soreness or stiffness when I'm pushing myself. To paraphrase the cycling coach Hunter Allen: in order to get really good, you're going to have to suffer, it's going to hurt, and you're going to want to quit. I want to break 42' in an oly 10k, so I expect to get a little sore on occasion.

That doesn't mean you have to go out and punish yourself all the time however. Indeed, you can continue to get fast, and probably enjoy yourself more, just by doing lots & lots of "comfortable" exercise.

All that said... I do think the BT plans are quite conservative, and if you feel like doing more, then by all means I'd go ahead and do more.

Willing to answer any other questions

great threads!
I would like to add that I've been doing spin classes three times a week this summer and I know for a fact it has radicaly helped my bike splits.
I also love to hike and am trying to get more of that in - our steeep mountains help my calves and my endurance

Ah..... spin class... Somewhat derided as being too intense amongst triathletes. I put the principle of the rate of achievement to use one winter several years ago, without even realizing it (or even knowing it existed). I was just a recreational rider, but I had a loop I'd do fairly hard and could average about 18mph when I really pegged it. Around this time I decided I was sick of looking like I was 6 months pregnant, so I decided to make a habit of going to spin class every single day, Mon-Fri, (in addition to cutting out the junk food).

By the time the first Friday rolled around, I was spent! Getting up that morning felt like I was coming off a 3-day college bender. BTW Tiny, I was sore as #!@#$. By the time lunch rolled around, I wasn't feeling much better, but I hopped on the bike anyway, and sure enough by the time I got warmed up I was able to get the workout done. I think I did this for about 2 months, and eventually I was able to go through the whole week and still feel good at the end.

And then a funny thing happened.... It had warmed up enough that I took my bike to the old loop. I wasn't planning on going hard, but every time I looked at the speedometer it said I was going 20mph. This was big. Huge. I'd never been able to pedal 20mph for more than just a short burst.

I once again fell into the non-exercising, junk-food eating routine when we had our first kid. But sure enough, once I decided to start doing triathlons to get back in shape (again), it only took a few weeks and I was soon able to ramp up to 20mph on that loop (ease of maintenance principle also in action).

So, "radically" helped your bike? Doesn't surprise me! Keep it up!

Spin classes also have a nice social component, which can be important for some people.

I would also add that doing a short 10-15 minute run after each of those spin classes, while keeping your regular runs going, will result in huge gains for your run as well.

Sounds like you may be going to hard. Are you pretty wiped out after the 30 minutes?

Sounds like you may be going to hard. Are you pretty wiped out after the 30 minutes?

No I have learned how to relax, and could go farther,  I have been doing my runs about 1hr after the swim and am running without walking.  The reason I think it is in my head is because I start using 2 breaths before 25 yds.

Just wondering what drills I might could try.  I am also wondering if I am not exhaling all air out before rolling?  I will try and determine that tomorrow.

Also Lee I was wondering if there is any tri's in your area after August that might need some volunteers?  My daughter will be back at Norman.  She does not participate but loves to volunteer and also has a kayak that she is good at operating

Thanks; Dwayne

Edited by Dwayne 2008-07-24 9:29 AM

The big one is Redman, a half and full iron-distance triathlon, sept 20. Here's the page for volunteers: http://redmantriathlon.com/Volunteers/tabid/56/Default.aspx

I'm sure they'd love to have her help out.

You definitely want to fully exhale when your head is in the water. If I have to swim "easy", I always make sure I can do it breathing bilaterally (that's just me, that's not a general rule). If I can't, then I'm going too hard. Easy to go out too hard when you've been swimming a hard set, but forcing myself to slow down enough to breath on both sides is a good reality check.

This was written for my local tri club...


Mudwater sprint - a fun, laid-back, low-key affair.


750m swim: 13:46 (including long run up the beach)
t1: 0:45
20K bike: 32:37
t2: 0:43
5k run: 20:42
overall: 1:08:34
2nd age group / 10th overall


swim: the water isn't really all that muddy. And it doesn't stain your clothes like the red-dirt muddy water we have here. I had an excellent swim. Since my poor swim at KS I've been putting a little more effort into swimming and it's nice to see it pay off. Buzz said it would be a mad sprint to the first buoy, and he was right. I started right up front in the middle again, lots of heads-up swimming until a little after the first buoy.

bike: I've done two TRIs in KS, and they've both had excellent roads. This was smooth asphalt with some rollers and very little traffic. I'm the only one that didn't crush the bike. In fact, I averaged less watts at mudwater sprint than I did at Rt. 66 Oly. :oops: The Du was 30K, and I just assumed that the sprint was 30K. Plus I didn't do a bike warm-up. So I had a low target to begin with, and trouble meeting that target.

run: Nice little run through the park, pretty much flat and once again on smooth asphalt. I had an excellent run. I've been working some 6:40 pace into my tempo runs, and sure enough that's paid off too. Finished with my best 5K time to date.



Edited by lrobb 2008-07-28 4:26 AM